The classroom participation is a key indicator of the successfulness of English teaching. The effect of English teaching might be affected by the emotional anxiety of the learners, which is a psychological activity of self-perception and emotional changes in the learning process. To evaluate the correlations between emotional anxiety and classroom participation, this paper carries out questionnaire surveys and interviews among 100 non-English major freshmen from a university in Beijing, China. The emotional anxiety and classroom participation of the respondents were tested, and analyzed in details on SPSS 17.0. The results show that emotional anxiety, if falling in a suitable range, can boost the classroom participation; if it is excessively low or high, emotional anxiety will have a negative influence on classroom participation in English teaching; emotional anxiety should be controlled properly to improve the learning enthusiasm and the teaching quality of college English. The research results propose a new direction for improving the effect of English teaching in China.